Business Development Manager

The team

Payward Services is an enterprise infrastructure platform that enables companies to seamlessly integrate trading, payments, funding, and digital asset services through a single unified system. It provides coordinated liquidity, custody, compliance, risk management, and settlement capabilities, reducing operational complexity for fintechs, banks, brokerages, and payment providers.

Payward — the parent company behind Kraken, NinjaTrader, Breakout, and xStocks — has spent the last 15 years building one of the most modern and globally accessible financial infrastructure platforms in the industry. Through Payward Services, we provide partners with a single integration point for crypto trading, custody, tokenized equities, derivatives, payments, yield products, and embedded multi-asset brokerage infrastructure.

About role

We are seeking a high-calibre Business Development Manager to drive new business development for our Trading-as-a-Service platform across financial institutions, broker-dealers, fintechs, payments companies, wealth platforms, and consumer technology firms. This is a senior individual contributor and true hunter role, requiring end-to-end ownership of the sales lifecycle from outbound origination through contract execution and early-stage partner onboarding.

The ideal candidate brings an established institutional network and a strong understanding of capital markets, embedded finance, and digital assets, with the ability to structure and close strategic partnerships around crypto trading, tokenized equities, derivatives/futures, and API-first brokerage infrastructure. They will work closely with Product, Engineering, Liquidity, Compliance, and Legal teams to translate partner requirements into scalable commercial solutions and help clients launch institutional-grade trading experiences directly within their own products and ecosystems.

 The opportunity

• Build and manage a high-quality pipeline across financial institutions, broker-dealers, fintechs, consumer platforms, exchanges, and trading applications.

• Drive new partnerships focused on crypto trading, tokenized equities, derivatives/futures, embedded brokerage, and multi-asset trading infrastructure.

• Own the full sales cycle from outbound origination and discovery through commercial negotiation, signed agreement, and launch.

• Lead commercial discussions with C-level, product, engineering, and business stakeholders across prospective partner organizations.

• Position Payward Services as the partner of choice for companies seeking to launch or scale modern trading and investing experiences.

• Help partners bring investing and trading capabilities directly into their products through Payward Services’ API-first infrastructure stack.

• Partner closely with Product, Compliance, Legal, Engineering, and Client Success teams to structure and launch scalable commercial partnerships.

• Identify new market opportunities across digital assets, tokenized finance, embedded investing, and next-generation trading applications.

• Represent Payward Services at key industry conferences, client meetings, and ecosystem events globally.

• Provide ongoing market feedback and competitive intelligence to help shape product roadmap, positioning, and go-to-market strategy.

• Maintain accurate pipeline forecasting, stakeholder mapping, and CRM hygiene across all commercial activities.

 What You Bring

• 8+ years of sales or business development experience within financial services, fintech, embedded finance, capital markets infrastructure, or digital assets, with demonstrable success in a hunter/new business role.

• Deep and active network of relationships across financial institutions, broker-dealers, fintechs, exchanges, payments companies, wealth platforms, and consumer technology companies at a decision-maker level.

• Proven track record of originating and closing complex, multi-stakeholder B2B partnerships with 6-7 figure ACV/TCV structures.

• Strong understanding of modern trading infrastructure including API-first trading platforms, embedded investing experiences, crypto spot and derivatives trading, tokenized equities, and multi-asset brokerage solutions.

• Experience selling Trading-as-a-Service, embedded finance, API-based trading infrastructure, white-label brokerage, or multi-asset trading platforms.

• Working knowledge of crypto markets, blockchain technology, tokenized assets, stablecoins, derivatives/futures, and emerging digital asset trading trends.

• Ability to communicate complex technical, operational, and regulatory concepts in a clear and commercially compelling way to executive, product, and engineering stakeholders.

• Comfortable operating across multiple time zones and managing a global client base from a European base.

• Degree-level education or equivalent professional experience in Finance, Economics, Business, Capital Markets, or a related field.

Nice to haves

• Prior experience at a crypto exchange, fintech infrastructure provider, embedded finance platform, or trading technology company.